Power Play
by derpette-Waffle
Summary: The emperor dead at last, they would come to kill the children, too. "So, will you fight?" -superhuman au
1. Chapter 1

The emperor dead at last, they would come to kill the children, too.

Black clouds came rolling in from over the calm expanse of sea. The island was no longer safe; from the courtyard Antonio could see approaching ships looming on the horizon. Try as he might, he could not command a bolt of lightning to bury them in crashing waves. Only thirteen years old and with no formal training, he was not yet powerful enough to bring in anything but wind and rain.

"It's no use." In a sudden panic, he ran back into the palace, wings nearly carrying him off the ground. He kept them tight against his back -the halls were to twisting and narrow to navigate in the air.

Most of the servants had abandoned the palace for deeper inland at the news. Rid of their shackles, they bolted to freedom. Quick footsteps of the young teen echoed against the polished stone floor and marble walls. He and Camille, only, remained.

"They're coming!"

Camille, ignoring the younger's outcry, hushed him in a low hiss. "You'll wake them."

The young boys were asleep in the darkness, absent of the sunlight that would fall on their peaceful faces. Antonio felt a swell of sympathy, and grew quieter. "They're coming," he repeated.

Camille sighed heavily, her graceful face grim. "What can we do?" Her voice gave her cousin little hope for victory against their coming assailants.

"We…" His warm green eyes fell anxiously on the children. Camille's followed, and together they saw similar visions of the rosy children replaced by bloody corpses, their little lives lost to megalomanic conquerers. "We can't let them die."

It wasn't much of a strategy, but the teen believed his priorities to be in the right order. His strength of heart, he believed, could fuel the power of the storm, and perhaps the lightning would come of its own volition, and they might get lucky yet. Antonio hurried forward and scooped up the elder of the two brothers; Lovino winced and whined and buried his sleepy face into the servant's shoulder as the older boy held him tight.

Though unsure of her cousin's intent, Camille followed his lead and lifted milder Feliciano -only four years old- out of his own white bed. He blinked his hazy eyes open briefly before yawning and falling back asleep. It had been Camille's idea, in the upheaval of the house, to give the successors a tranquilizing draught. She was happy now for her decision. "Where can we take them?"

Antonio's wings twitched nervously as he thought. Although their enemy was still many miles out at sea, he felt them surrounded. All the carriages and horses were stolen by freed servants in their escape; to flee to the watery horizon was not an option. Land routes impractical and the ocean suicide, the only way left to go was by air…

"I'll fly us away."

Camille almost scoffed at the idea. "You can't carry us all… We'll drop right out of the sky to our deaths."

He hated to admit it, but she was right. He could carry himself fine, but even with a rush of adrenaline Antonio would not be able to get them away to safety without running the risk of killing them all.

His eyes flickered then to Feliciano, and Camille held him tighter to her chest. "Don't you dare. He can't-"

"Maybe he can." He lifted Lovino higher on his hip when the six-year-old started to squirm. The potion was wearing off. "It's worth a shot… We'll all perish here otherwise."

Camille would've continued to protest, but it was then the small princeling fully awoke in her arms. He yawned and tried to stretch, but realizing his sudden height he clung back to the servant girl's neck. "Morning, Miss Camille," he mumbled, and then seeing the other, he greeted him too in his sweet little voice. As the child gradually came to his senses, Feliciano realized he was in the darkness, the halls unusually empty, and he and his big brother being held by their two most loyal workers. He eagerly started to question. "Where are we? What's going on?"

"We have to leave here for a while," Camille answered, her soft voice full of sympathy, and she stroked the boy's soft auburn hair.

"We just have to figure out how first." Antonio earned a hard glare from the girl for that, but he went on. "Just the four of us. But we'll come back one day…" It was probably a lie. "Feli, you know how sometimes you can be one place one minute, and then -without walking or running or anything- you can be in an entirely different place?"

The child yawned again and nodded, smiling a little.

"Do you think you can do that, but go much further away, and with the three of us?"

Feliciano didn't know, but he was a little too young and a little too tired to think about it either. "Sure, Toni…"

"Okay." He could only hope this would work. "Hold onto Camille, okay?" Antonio took his cousin's hand and held on tighter to the still sleeping boy in his arms. "Ready, Feli?"

The boy nodded happily. There was a blinding burst of light in their eyes, and when they could open them again, it was to an entirely unfamiliar landscape.

There was no sea nor rocky shore nor sandy harbor. There was nothing around them but tall trees. And the older children were then still frightened.


	2. Chapter 2

Antonio might have been able to pick out what was okay to eat, or Camille could've hunted and killed a squirrel or two, if their surroundings weren't so terribly unfamiliar (and if little Feliciano wouldn't have been terrified should Camille even hurt a creature). Though Antonio insisted he had cleared the sky overhead, the overhanging canopy was so thick they were shrouded in darkness even in daytime. The heavy layer of leaves also quashed hopes that he could fly up above the forest to discover a good direction they could head in.

By now, Camille potion had worn off for both of the boys, and they didn't need to be carried anymore. This should've been a small relief.

"Feli, don't wander too far…" Worse come to worst -if the child ran too deep in the woods to be within sight or sound- Camille could turn him around herself, but she didn't want to hurt him. He would wear himself out eventually, and the boy was light enough to carry with little effort. "Feli!"

The cherubic child peeked from around a tree trunk, smiling brightly at his caretaker.

They hadn't eaten, and it was only a matter of time before the young boys noticed their own growling stomachs. "I can't walk when I'm hungry!" Lovino shouted, breaking up the relative silence of the woods. Small, scarred hands tugged hard at the back of Antonio's shirt, burning holes in the thin fabric before the teen finally spun around and scooped him up.

"What did I tell you about grabbing on like that?" he scolded, sympathetic but frustrated. He had to be cautious of the child's squirming. "Put your gloves back on…"

"They're too hot…" He stared at the hardened flesh of his palms and fingers before Antonio gripped them both in one larger hand.

"You need to relax, alright?" He moved the boy to his hip again, the hot weight on his side disconcerting even as his heart was full of compassion. "I know you're hungry, I know you're tired." He was much the same, but couldn't let on to that. "Just… go back to sleep."

"I'm not that kind of tired, stupid." He was reluctantly tugging his leather gloves back on, and came to wrap his arms around the teen's neck.

They wandered in some direction a few more hours, Camille with a close eye on a still wandering Feliciano, and Antonio with the other child still tightly held in his arms. Eventually he turned to the little brother: "Feli, come catch up!" There was a stream ahead, and they could all have a drink of water; the sooner they got to the little brook the better, and his walking companions were starting to fall behind.

But the boy only giggled and ran deeper into the forest.

"Feli!"

There was a sudden whirring through the air, and arrow zipping between the trees and nearly hitting the small boy's head. Feliciano leapt in fear and, in a flash of light, he was gone.

* * *

There was a figure obscured in the shadows.

Once the panic of watching their small charge nearly shot and killed, Camille and Antonio reacted in anger. The boy's wings spread out to make him look larger, a snarl set in his usually cheerful mouth. The angry beating of the feathery protrusions woke the child at his side, and as he came to consciousness his body burned hotter. Whoever made Antonio so angry made Lovino angry, too, and he yelped in pain as fire ignited under his gloves.

Camille, meanwhile, was less resistant to using her own abilities against her ward's assailant. But as she tried to access the stranger's mind, she found herself strangely blocked out, and the only one to feel the pain of the blast was herself. Though sympathetic to the pain she could cause, she was unaccustomed to the burst herself, and it sent her reeling back into a tree.

Antonio rushed to her, wings still spread out and up in defense of his cousin.

The covert figure had not moved, but when it did, it revealed itself to in fact be too. They were still wrapped in unnatural darkness.

Camille, still reeling, eventually came to her senses. Over her companion's wings she could see the silhouette of a long bow in the stranger's hand, and afraid for their own safety now, she laid a hand on Antonio's feathered limb.

He was slow to react to the gesture, but brought back into the immediacy of Camille behind him and Lovino on his waist, clinging to his neck, he came to calm down, wings slowly lowering.

Given the chance, and abhorring of violence, Camille tried to approach the matter with calm civility. "Please." Her voice nearly cracked. "We two are only young, and have two small children in our charge." She could not say where Feliciano had vanished to, which frightened her, but she trusted that -without time to put thought into the location- he could not have escaped to very far away. "We can pay you for your hospitality." She had a few gold coins in the pocket of her apron. Antonio, she thought, might have some as well. "All we ask is for food, shelter, and directions out of this forest…"

Eventually the shadows lightened up.

Standing in their place were a young man and a girl, the latter about Antonio's age or even younger. They were dressed in coarse, dark shirts and pants, most practical in the heavy woods. It was the man who had the bow, and an arrow nocked in the taut string.

"The boy that disappeared. Where did he go?" His voice was low and even, and even at his short stature he seemed a threat to the lost travellers. The girl stood behind him and said nothing. "Is he one of them?"

"We are all," Antonio asnwered, almost without thinking, quick to identify them all on equal terms. They were in this together.

Before the man could respond to this, little Feliciano came then running toward them, crying and immediately clinging to Camille's skirt. She scooped him up and held him tight, relieved to have him reappear so soon.

Apparently satisfied with the four now gathered, the man herded them over the stream. Thirsty, nonetheless none of them said anything about now getting a drink of water.

* * *

The man was named Vash, and his sister named Lilli. They were all, on some level, the same.

There was a stone-built estate buried in the woodland. Antonio was rejuvenated to see the sky open above them once more. Almost too quickly for him, they were under cover once more, and the brother and sister led them into a large room.

"We found a few," Vash greeted the silver-haired young man sitting at the desk.

Lilli asked that the four line up in front of this man, who then introduced himself as Gilbert.

"Welcome to my home, weary travellers." There was a teasing lilt to his jovial voice. "Vash, will you go to the kitchen and find our guests something to eat and drink?"

And as he did, Gilbert stood and stretched, and approached the lineup. He looked them over carefully, a small smile on his face; he reached out and stroked Antonio's left wing, which flinched away from the strange touch.

"Very good…" he mused to himself, and sat on the front of his desk. "Well, if you're going to be staying here, we should probably get to know each other. We're all the same, after all. Like I said, my name's Gilbert; you can call me Gil, if you want. I suffer from immortality and invulnerability; I think I'm around 3800 years old, give or take a few decades. Now…" He leaned back on his hands. "Can I know your names, and what you do?"

"Excuse me?" Camille asked quietly.

"Your abilities. What can you do that others can't." He turned on Antonio, at the far left of the line. "Let's start with you, boy. Tell me about yourself."

He just wanted to get this over with. "My name's Antonio, and I can control the weather and… can fly, but you probably guessed that."

"Control the weather, eh?" Gilbert looked to write the information down. "That's quite a bit of power. How good are you?"

"I can summon clouds and send them away, and I can make it rain and windy. That's about it…"

"That's a start." He turned now to the girl at the other end of the line. "You, love?"

"I… My name's Camille. I can enter a person's mind, see what they see, make them see and hear things that aren't there."

"That sounds painful," he grinned. "For the other person, at least."

"It is…"

He left her alone after that, and turned his attention to the children, but asked Antonio first, "Can they tell me about their own abilities? Or are they too young to understand?"

"I'm not stupid, asshole! I can answer for myself!" Lovino asserted, glaring at the stranger and puffing out his cheeks, his skin going red and hot.

Gilbert smirked and knelt down in front of him. "You're a feisty little guy." He dodged a tiny fist, and Antonio pulled the boy against his leg, rubbing his tense shoulders. "So, tell me, then. What can you do?"

"My name's Lovino and I start fires."

"Well, I can start fires, too."

Frustrated, the boy ripped off his leather gloves, and the flames rose higher on his hands. The skin burned, and the child bit back a cry of pain.

Gilbert nodded, satisfied with the display, and glanced up at Antonio, who was urging the child to calm down. "He's not very good at controlling it, is he?"

Antonio had to restrain his little ward, glad that his gloves were back on; but as Lovino started crying in pain and anger, he sort of wished he'd just let him go at the man who'd upset him so.

Lastly Gilbert came to Feliciano, who was indeed too young to articulate his abilities. Camille explained for him, giving his name, and answering that "he can disappear and reappear elsewhere. That's how we turned up in the woods in the first place."

Gilbert was more than satisfied. For the sake of fair exchange, it seemed, he explained the abilities of the pair the four had met in the forest: "Vash can manipulate light and dark; Lilli can negate others' powers. The rest of my household you'll discover during your stay."

A hot meal of stew and bred was brought in, and the hungry group eagerly swallowed the food down, and drank from iron cups: water for the children, and diluted beer for the teens. Gilbert insisted they make themselves at home, and disappeared to the darkness of the second floor.


	3. Chapter 3

With nowhere to go, they were really in no rush to leave. The estate in the meadow wasn't as expansive as the palace by the sea, but it was plenty spacious in its own right. Gilbert kept them well fed and each had their own beds; Camille had her own room separate from the boys, who shared one, but they all had plenty of space. There was open air for Antonio to fly around every and all day, and he kept the sky sunny and the air comfortably warm.

"You're gonna go too high and drop me!"

"No, Lovi, I promise I'll hold on nice and tight." He held out his arms, wings fluttering eagerly and a light breeze wafting around them both. The field was wide and grassy, but his small companion still stood a few meters away, gripping tight to the sides of his pants. "I won't let you fall. I swear."

But Lovino knew that, up in the air and afraid, he could flare up at any moment and burn his older friend (because that was what Antonio was to him, more so than his servant). He couldn't set them alight and send them both crashing out of the sky. So still, he refused. And Antonio, disappointed, gave up on this for now.

The four of them thought and spoke often of their home left behind. But all were at least content to stay for those few weeks.

It was in the second month of their stay that Gilbert gathered his guests again in his office. He wasn't wearing his patent smug grin; rather he looked quite serious, eyes moving from one to the other in slow procession.

"Gil?" Camille had become especially close with their host during their stay. "It's really late, now. The boys should be getting to bed."

He still didn't say anything. He seemed to have either ignored or not heard her words.

Feliciano was falling asleep standing, swaying on his feet. Lovino was bumping his head into Antonio's side, but was relatively well behaved for the promise of sweets after this meeting.

It was another ten or fifteen minutes of silence before Antonio spoke up this time. "Gilbert-"

"I think it's time we get started." The man stood and paced back and forth across the floor. But slowly, the smile again came to his mouth. "You all have quite a bit of training to do."

"Training?"

"We'll start in the morning."

Anxious to understand what he was talking about, Camille asked that Antonio put the children to bed. Her cousin wanted answers as badly as she did, but at a whine of protest from his young charge, he relented and escorted them out of the room.

"Gil, what is going on?"

"Word has finally reached here from the West. Arthur Kirkland and his men have occupied the palace of the dead emperor. He has proclaimed himself the new king of Ethya, and is making plans to attack our land, and overthrow this country to gain greater access to East Ethya."

The conquest ought to have preoccupied Camille more than it had during their peaceful stay. Home seemed so far away now. "And what of this training you mentioned?" she asked quietly.

"The four of you -if or when it comes to this- will fight to defend this land along with the rest of my house. I will not be conquered by a nobleman's bastard calling himself King."

Fight? They could not take on Kirkland's forces even were they grown and more powerful than any of the children could imagine. "Gilbert, we can't-"

"You can. And you will."

Suddenly a defiance rose in her chest, and she stood with her head high. She was only a few inches shorter than he was. "And if I -if we- refuse?"

He only stared at her a moment; a grin came to his pale face. "You've taken my hospitality for granted, my dear." He reached out and touched her cheek (she didn't flinch away). "For centuries I've watched my world crumbling around me. I was once a king of kings, fleets and armies at my fingertips. This measly plot of land, this strip connecting the empire that was once my own… I will not lose this as well. And did I not believe in the potential abilities of my new guests, I would have sent you back where you belong."

Now Camille did pull away, but with a quiet sympathy in her gentle heart. Still angry, though, she interrogated further. "Say we could help you -what would it mean for us?"

He took her in his arms and kissed her now; she tried to kiss him back, but he pulled away to speak again. "If we could defeat him, I would take what land he has, and be again the great ruler I once was. I would be the emperor, and make you my empress."

"And the boys…?"

"They would be whatever they wished, and have whatever their hearts desired. Young lords of the realm at the command of an emperor and his bride, all feared and revered the world over."

The promise of such luxury enticed the servant girl. But still there could be no promises of this happy fate. "And if we… couldn't help you?" There was no saying whether she could convince Antonio to join the fight, and Lovino and Feliciano were still so small.

Gilbert let go of her and turned away, out the window. He seemed to stare up at the stars, and avoided her eye as he answered. "Then I have no practical reason for you here." He spun back around, tears in his eyes, but voice calm and steady. "I'll start with you, my dear. If you refuse to fight, then I'll have no choice but to send you away -the betrayal would hurt me too much to keep you."

He sighed heavily, and finally met her eye, before continuing.

"If you choose yourself to fight on my side, then I would take you for a wife in victory or in defeat."

"And the others..?"

"For you, I might be able to show your cousin mercy. Antonio would be exiled, but that's the worse I could probably do. Maybe I'd send him out to sea, and he could find homestead where he hits land."

She couldn't bear the thought of playing a hand in sending Antonio off like that. She would need to convince him to fight. "The boys are too young to fight."

"They'll be trained while we have the time, but I would need them on my side when it comes to battle."

"If Kirkland plans to invade, he'll likely do it soon." The man was not known for his patience.

"Then I would need them to fight. They'll make forces to be reckoned with once we access their full potentials."

Camille didn't know what he meant by that, but her ensuing question was cut off when Gilbert abruptly went on.

"I know who they are, Camille. And the death of the former emperor's sons at Kirkland's hand would legitimize his claim to power. If it meant that he would leave my country alone, or if he and I could come to compromise-"

"You wouldn't!"

"I wish I could say so. But I have my own family to protect."

He took her hands in his. They were unsuspectingly warm, a heat she knew well by now. He let go of one after a moment to tilt her head up. Her eyes met his crimson gaze.

"So, will you fight?"


End file.
